CLU concert to feature music by women

Guest conductor will direct choir, women's chorale

Guest conductor Jessica Helms earned a bachelor’s degree in music, specializing in piano and oboe, from CLU in 2004.

(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Feb. 19, 2014) The California Lutheran University Choir and Women’s Chorale will perform music by female composers at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, in Samuelson Chapel.

The CLU Choir and Women’s Chorale will present their annual Spring Concert with guest conductor Jessica Helms. The program will feature an eclectic assortment of music by female composers including a rarely performed cantata by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, sister of the famed Felix Mendelssohn, Alice Parker’s “Street Corner Spirituals” and works by Lili Boulanger and Gwyneth Walker.

Helms earned a bachelor’s degree in music, specializing in piano and oboe, from CLU in 2004. The Newbury Park resident is an accompanist for the university and has played for other choirs, ensembles and soloists including Newbury Park High School, Ascension Lutheran Church, Our Redeemer Lutheran Church of Oxnard, the Geraldine Decker Vocal Studio, Camarillo Community Theatre, All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church of Santa Barbara and Ventura College. She did graduate work at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., and is pursuing a master’s degree in choral conducting at California State University, Los Angeles.

The CLU Choir is the premiere choral ensemble at CLU. While dedicated to performing works that represent the university’s Lutheran heritage, it also embraces innovative new music and pieces expressing a multicultural perspective.

The CLU Women’s Chorale is comprised primarily of freshmen and sophomores. It draws its repertoire from the wealth of choral music for female voices from a range of historical periods from classical to modern.

Donations will be accepted.

Samuelson Chapel is located at 165 Chapel Lane south of Olsen Road near Campus Drive on the Thousand Oaks campus. Additional parking is available at the corner of Olsen Road and Mountclef Boulevard.

For more information, call the Music Department at 805-493-3306 or visit callutheran.edu.